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Fishies

So there we were wandering around the pet section of the garden centre, as you do, when Gareth says “I’ve been thinking of getting a fish tank…”
I wasn’t too convinced at first, as my memories of the aquarium we had when I was little mostly involve my brothers performing epic cleaning sessions. But some of the smaller tanks in Dobbies looked pretty sleek, and the fish were all swimming about prettily, and soon I was well into it.

So we got a 23 litre tank, and they told us to set it all up and let the good bacteria grow for a few days.

I’m not sure what plants we have, as they weren’t labelled in the shop, but going by the internets the broad leaf one on the left looks like “Amazon sword”. There’s a frondy ‘pine needle’ one at the back left, currently hidden by the Amazon swords, which I think may be Hornwart are Cabomba*. The big ‘bushy’ one at the back right I think is Anacharis Elodea or Egeria*, and the grassy ones on either side could be Vallisneria. Do let me know if you identify them as something else.

We were advised to go for freshwater tropical fish, as they don’t grow as big as cold water ones. Fine by me, as I don’t like goldfish (the ones we had when I was little bullied the other fish), and I think the little tropical ones are really quite pretty. So after a few days Gareth went back and got some hardy little Danios to start off.

We got ‘zebra’ Danios and ‘leopard’ Danios. When we first got them their colour seemed a little dull, but apparently that happens when they’re unsettled, and their colour becomes more vibrant as they settle in. So by day 2 the zebras were nice and silvery, and the leopards were a lovely golden. By day three, the zebras came out with a lovely blue sheen as well.

They’ve very energetic, and love chasing each other around. They’ll calm down for a bit and swim about slowly, and then suddenly break into chase again, and they quite like playing in the plants

They originate from South Asia, and if the Wikipedia entry is right, their name comes from the Bengali dhani, meaning “of the rice field.” I quite like that, as Gareth does research on rice. So, they seem ok for now, and maybe in a few weeks we can get a couple more little tropical fishies. Tomorrow it’s Water Change/Filter Cleaning Day…hopefully less epic than what I recall.